FEBRUARY

by Penelope Scambly Schott

Image source: Save the Children

The early robin plumps on a fence post
well ahead of the meadow larks –
I count one vote for spring.

My lonely neighbor left her lights on all night
and rose in frost to sweep her patio
clean of sunflower husks.

In a camp just beyond the Syrian border
most of the 75,000 shivering refugees
are under the age of four.

I remember completely being three years old –
how near my hands were to my elbows
and my fingers to my mouth.

Today, on this fragrant slice of warm toast
veined with cinnamon sugar,
the spread butter melts.

We all have our mouths wide open
and some of us sing.


Penelope Scambly Schott’s forthcoming book Lillie Was a Goddess, Lillie Was a Whore is a series of poems about prostitution.

ODE TO THE EMOTIVE RODENTS

by Agrimmeer


                                           Singing Mice Learn New Tunes--National Geographic


  Hear Mice Sing by cdellamore


Mice white as icing can’t recall their lines.
Nor can they handle Shakespearean rhymes,
the cage their stage without admission fees,
in ad-lib scenes, they let loose as they please.
Needle teeth chatter, as they self-flatter,
“I sing, therefore I am,” and similar blather,
without thinking, they keen, upon their wee knees,
a hymn or a croon for that moon of cheese.


Agrimmeer grew to adulthood in the New Haven area but through the winds of time has put down roots in Texas, where he works in energy and real estate law, and where he sometimes gets in hot water for writing poetry about those areas, but keeps doing it anyway.